I know you want to look at pictures and we'll get to that, but if you are seriously interested in making soap at some point, this blog is supposed to help you, so let me say a few things first:
*Check your scale first. Recipes are in decimals not fractions and I had to convert between the two. There is a new scale in my soap making future!
*Lye will not jump up and try to strangle you! I mixed it under my vent on the stove. I used a dishwasher safe pitcher which got warm, but worked fine. I liked that it was deep and I didn't have to worry about splashes. I then placed the pitcher in an ice bath to cool it down. Your oils and your lye have to be within 10 degrees of each other before you mix them together to get soap.
*Get all your things out in advance and do a run through. Remember to have things ready for cleanup because YOU CANNOT WASH THE LEFTOVERS DOWN YOUR DRAIN!
Okay, here's what happened in my kitchen this morning. Not great pics, but it's hard to take pics while you're trying to keep the soap process going at the same time.
Everything out and ready including putting the animals away. Don't want to trip over a critter with caustic substances in your hands!
This is the dreaded LYE! Take note of the white distilled vinegar. It's the neutralizer and you need plenty on hand in case of an emergency spill and also when it's time to clean up.
This is lye in the pitcher. Use a candy thermometer to monitor the temp. Also, use chilled, DISTILLED, water. ADD THE LYE TO THE WATER. NEVER the other way around or KABOOM!
These are the oils. Some are liquid and some are solid and you slowly warm and bring into a cohesive goo.
This is called soaponification. You have added the lye water to the oils and as you stir, you are waiting for something called trace to happen. Trace makes you very, very, happy! :)
This is fragrance oil. This one is called Energy and smells like citrus. Note that the cute little bowls I bought are useless because they are too cute and too little. You add the fragrance after trace happens. (my house stills smells like this)
This is how my recipe started out. Nice and neat. The paper on the right is the actual recipe.
And this is how my recipe looked at the end. I am such a SLOB!
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And here we have soap in the mold! There is plastic wrap on the top.
Then you do this...
You wrap it all up nice and cozy in towels to insulate it so it can keep cooking and the lye can do it's job. It goes through a gel phase and then gets hard enough to slice in 24 hours. But you can't touch it until then! No Peeking!!
Tomorrow we slice the sucker up! See you then!!
WooooHooooo.
ReplyDeleteWooooHoooo indeed!!
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